College grads are the only employment group to have gained
net jobs over the past five or so years. Unemployment among college graduates
is much lower than among those without a degree. The most recent unemployment rate for college graduates ages 25 and older was only 3.9%; 7.4% for those with
a high school degree.

In other words, college graduates have been taking low-paid
jobs. That goes a long way to explaining the mounting debt incurred by graduating students.
Some would say that it’s a classic bait-and-switch when colleges offer
expensive degrees knowing that many if not most of the students will get jobs that
won’t allow them to pay off their loans. Kids think they’ll write TV ads and
they end up penning short articles for Internet news services at $25 a pop. They
think they’ll be television news reporters and they end up as administrative
assistants in the sales department of a local radio station. They think they’ll
get a position with a corporate law firm and they end up doing contract legal
grunt work at $25 an hour.Or what about
the kids with degrees who are hauling garbage, driving taxis, filing papers and
staffing call centers? It’s tough to pay off $100,000 in college loans on the
pay you get at any of these jobs.

Those who hold colleges blameless for the low pay in so many
professions should consider one more trend: Study after study shows that
enormous numbers of kids get accepted to colleges needing remedial work. For
example, a study of scores on the ACT test shows that 48% of all high school graduates need remedial work in science.Other studies reveal that half of all students in California need remedial help
in English and math and 40% in Colorado. One impetus for increasing online
college courses is to inexpensively address the issue of kids arriving on
campus without the basic skills to do college work.

My question—no, my accusation—is: Why do colleges accept
students who aren’t ready to do the work?

By accepting and enrolling students who need remedial work,
colleges participate in a vast and growing fraud on American families. Wouldn’t
the kids not ready for college be better off in community colleges working on
their English and math skills? Or in a state-sponsored vocational program that
trains people for one specific career?I
do not believe that any accredited 4-year college should be permitted to accept
students who need remedial work before they can tackle real college, nor should
any 4-year college or university offer remedial courses. It’s immoral to take
money for higher education and deliver high school courses.

Now I’m all for universities establishing special extensions
to offer high school grads the opportunity to improve their basic skills enough
to be able to take college courses, but if and only if they charge traditional
community college prices.

Encouraging kids who don’t really belong in college to take
another route will solve half the problem, as it will ease the national college
debt burden.But that still doesn’t
address the fact that so many jobs pay so little nowadays. To solve the problem
will take what it has always taken: Greater unionization. An increase in the
minimum wage. Taxing the rich to pay for better public education and
non-college training.

If it weren’t for the entertainment value, I’d be pleased that Texas Governor Rick Perry is foundering in the Republican presidential race. After all, Governor Perry, who is in an unprecedented fourth term as chief executive of the nation's second-largest state, still might get the Republican nomination for president. If that happens there’s no telling what the voters might be fooled into doing. Just look at how far George W. Bush got.